The Pursuit of the House-Boat

s," said the stranger, as the Associated Shade

ipe which I had presented to me by an ancient sea-captain of my acquaintance, I have been interested in tobacco in all forms, even including these self-same despised

evident that they were beginning to feel an unusual interest in this extraordinary person, who had come

"that the unsmoked stub of a cigar will sugges

he wharf; it tells me the whole story of the intentions of Captain Kidd at the moment when, in utter disregard of you

ed Solomon, who deemed it the part of w

th in one of his later raids; it was knocked out by a marine-spike which had been hurled at him by one of the crew of the treasure-ship he and his followers had attacked. The adjacent teeth were broken, but not removed. The cigar end bears the marks of those two jagged molars, with the h

d out as irrelevant and absurd. The idea of two or three hundred dignified spirits like ourselves, gathered together to devise a means for the recovery of our property and the rescue of our wives, yielding the floor t

e pursuit of a criminal; no detail, however trifling, uncared for. No more should we in the present instance overlook the minutest bit of evidence, however irrelevant and absurd at first blush it may appear to be. The truth of what I say was very effectually proven in the strange case of the Brokedale tiara, in which I figured somewhat conspicuously, but which have n

said, as a result of which poor old Boswell was pushed overboard, and fell, with a loud splash into the Styx. Fortunately, however, one of Charon's pleasure-boats was close at han

incident of th

hat has ever been known. I did not find it necessary to go about saying 'Ha! ha!' as M. Le Coq was accustomed to do to advertise his cleverness; neither did I disguise myself as a drum-major and hide under a kitchen-table for the purpose of solving a mystery involving the abduction of a parlor stove, after the manner of the talented Hawkshaw. By mental concentration alone,

postor," whispered

long by the mole on hi

, contem

"I have observed that the greatest villains latterly have discarded disguises, as be

"How can the gentleman proceed, with al

mediately subsided, an

tiara valued at 50,000 pounds sterling had been stolen from the Duchess of Brokedale, and under circumstances which threw society itself and every individual in it under suspicion-even his Royal Highness the Prince himself, for he had danced frequently with the Duchess, and was known to be a great admirer of her tiara. It was at half-past eleven o'clock at night that the news of the robbery first came to my ears. I had been spending the evening alone in my library making notes for a second volume of my me

y full of winged elephants. They flew from flower to

queried Johnso

that the word? Thei

gine you mean," s

at honey-gatherers, those elephants-far better than the bees,

. "I'm afraid I'm outclassed by

ied Sir Walter. "These int

erial. Of course, if you gentlemen do not wish to hear it, I can stop; but it must be understood that when I do stop I stop finally, once and f

o on!" cr

-addressing the interru

with me. In the first place, she must inform one of her attendants that she has been robbed. He must communicate the news to the functionary in charge of her residence, who will communicate with the Home Secretary, and from him will issue the orders to the police, who, baffled at every step, will finally address themselves to me. 'I'll give that side two weeks,' I said. On the other hand, the robber: will he allow himself to be lulled into a false sense of security by counting on this delay, or will he not, noting my habit of occasionally entering upon detective enterprises of this nature of my own volition, come to me at once and set me to work ferreting out some crime that has never been committed? My feeling was that this would happen, and I pulled out my watch to see if it were not nearly time for him to arrive. The robbery ha

are

wiss movement; loses five minutes a day; stem-winder; and the back cover, which does not bear any inscription, has upon

l!" cried

w all that?" asked Sol

ion strikes me

uff. It was. I merely rattled on. I simply did not wish to offend the gentleman by letting him know that I had penetrated his disguise. Imagine my surprise, however, when his eye brightened as I spok

, sir. How did you know t

it well to fall in with his humour. 'Oh, as for that,' I replied, 'that is a part of my business. It is the detective's place to know everything; and generally, if he reveals the machinery by means of which he reaches his conclusions, he is a fool, since his method is his secret, and his secret his stock-in-trade

peated what he had said abo

my son made cutting

ry rings aren't good enough for American babies to chew

d you know I was a ri

son,' I replied, thinking that the jest would end there, and that he would now reveal h

lost my watch; such a watch, too, as you describe, even to the dents. Your only mistake was that the dents were made by my son John, and not Willie; but even there I cannot but wonder at you, for John and Willie are twins, and so much alike that it

e. My visitor was deceiving me, though for what purpose I did not on the instant divine. No one would like to suspect him of having purloined his

ness!" cri

er smiled

t of his mouth. 'It was numbered 86507B!' I crie

he smiled. 'You grow more marvellous at every st

'Only something

rgain, as, indeed, it was, from his point of view, feeling, as he did, that there never having been any such watch, it could not be recovered, and little suspecting that two could

ed, feeling, with all that prospective profit in view,

and seating himself by my table-stil

beaver until it cracked. He then nervously removed it, and I noticed a dull red mark running about his forehead, just as there would be on the forehead of a man whose hat fitted too tightly; and that mark, gentlemen, had the undulating outline of nothing more

assembled spirits, and even Messrs. Hawkshaw and

mercy. He had stolen the tiara, and had it concealed in the lining of his

he stammered, as I tur

aluable tiara of diamonds, and you have not lost your watch. Somebody has stolen the diamonds, and it may be that somewhere there is a Bunker who has lost such a watch as I have described. The queer part of it all is,' I con

-' he

't mind the 200 pounds; and you must give me the tiara, or I'll accompany you forthwith t

I suspected, there lay the tiara, snu

the tiara up to the light and watched with

me,' he moaned. 'I was d

but what I do intend is simply to wait until your wife retains me to find it, and then I'll find it and get the reward. If you keep perfectly still, I'll ha

'You couldn't prove

rted. 'If you don't believe it, read my book,'

e Duchess, and after a pretended search of ten days more I found the tiara, restored it to the noble lady, and received the 5000 pounds reward. The Duke kept perfectly quiet about our little encounter, and afterwards we be

observance of the pettiest details, I ferreted out what bade fair to become a great diamond mystery; and when I say

aleigh, growing tumul

me?" came from all

e of business cards, which he tossed, as the prestidigitator tosses playing-c

OCK H

ECT

ING DO

for

tch. Such carelessness destroys my confidence in him," said Shyloc